That was it. I broke down. I was done. The thunderstorm which began earlier in the evening had reached its peak so that my sobbing could hardly be heard by anyone that might have been listening. I fell back into the divan. Your dad Ray was standing, silhouetted in the kitchen doorway. A change had occurred in his face, something was broken there too when I looked up at him.
“What—” I said, more a gasp than a word by then. Ray had moved back into the shadow more, so I couldn’t see him when he told me:
“Everything’s dying around here; how can I be any different Sissy?”
He wandered off into the kitchen. I sat down in front of the television, commercials over, commercials back on.
JUST ME NOW, remembering that same night.
There was enough rain coming down to know God was angry too and talking back. I looked up, my face taking hard water, the storm reluctant to let me go. After a point, dragging my ankle through the rain, it was impossible to have been wetter. I wasn’t cold, though. It was still summer, there was plenty of heat still held in the ground to burn off. I was near the bowling alley where my dad and all of them drank after work. I figured I could dry off, maybe find a ride home. I’d been in once or twice before, sent looking for Dad by Mom, but never went in for myself. You know, in a decent world that would have been the end of this night. I would have walked home, had dinner. Going to bed and waking up the next morning used to solve problems in the small town of Reeve, Ohio. But I was not really there anymore.
Instead, when I walked into the bar in that bowling alley, it turned out I was the most entertainment those old drunks had had all evening.
“Been swimming or something?”
“Ain’t you a bit young to be drinkin’ here?”
“I wish I was that young, so I could do more drinkin’.”
“Why hell, it’s Ray’s boy! Hey there, Earl. I just knew with that ankle you’d be out on the town, not being in training no more.”
“Yeah and gettin’ laid. Christ, the pussy you young fellas get.”
“So how you doin’, Earl? You look all wet.”
“If you’re lookin’ for your daddy, he ain’t been in tonight.”
“I came in to get outta the rain,” I said, “and maybe for a drink.”
“He really ain’t in training.”
“Don’t bring him a glass of water. He’s got enough of that already.”
I thought maybe they’d put me out or something, but I was just accepted, no need for an initiation. Just showing up was enough; everyone could join the team. I realize now that in a way they were waiting for me, knowing sooner or later that we all ended up walking in one night. With that in mind, it was less of a surprise than I would’ve thought just a few hours ago when Mr. Matlock came out of the one toilet (there was no need for a ladies’ room) and slapped money on the counter, paying for my beer.
“So how come you’re so polite all of a sudden Matlock?”
“Same reason you’re not, it’s the way I was brought up. I just want to buy young Earl here a beer.”
“That’s generous of you,” said one of them men. “You ain’t never bought me a beer.”
“Ah hell, quit your joking. Earl’s a good boy,” said Mr. Matlock, slapping me on my wet back. “I know he’ll do the same thing for me someday.”
MOM ON THE bus, remembering:
I was sitting alone in the darkened living room, TV on, but I was listening to the rain. I never heard Ray leave the kitchen, but he didn’t answer me, so I tied my housecoat and walked over. The kitchen was dark save for the lightning that was slipping in through the windows and the orange dot of the timer on the stove. I tried at first to adjust my eyes, but instead turned on the overhead. It was a harsh light, and I was always after your dad to replace it with something nicer, but he never did. That night, it showed me Ray at the kitchen table, a half-empty liquor bottle beside him. A water glass full of whiskey nearby. He hardly ever drank much but beer, and I think we had that whiskey left over from a factory giveaway a couple of Christmases ago. The leftover Dairy Queen from before was spilled and dripping to the floor. I guess Ray had been eating it out of the container. The only sound besides that storm was the splat-splat of the melting ice cream hittin’ the floor.
“Ray, don’t you—” I said to him, but he wasn’t listening. I walked across the room to the sink, got a wet dish rag and wiped up the ice cream. What else was I to do? I sat down and poured myself a drink from Ray’s bottle.
THAT’S WHAT MOM was saying to me on the bus, but in my head I was still at the bar, drinking with Mr. Matlock and two or three other men. Several empty beer pitchers sat on the table in front of us.
“So anyway,” began one of the men, “The Big Bad Wolf jumps out and says, ‘I’m gonna eat you, Little Red Riding Hood,’ and she says, ‘Eat, eat, eat. Doesn’t anybody ever fuck anymore?’”
“Listen to this one. I was in bed with a blind girl last night and she said that I had the biggest dick she had ever laid her hands on. I said, ‘Honey, you’re pulling my leg.’”
“You hear the Irish Virgin’s Prayer? Lord have Murphy on me.”
“Boy sittin’ with his girlfriend watching a stallion and a mare havin’ at it. He says, ‘I wish I was doing that right now.’ Girl says, ‘Go ahead, she’s your horse.’”
“So how’s it working out with that younger woman you’re datin’?”
“She’s added years to my life.”
“Yeah, you look ten years older.”
“This one guy says ’Why so down?” and the other answers ‘Problems with the wife. She cut me back to only once a week for sex.’ The first says ‘Don’t feel so bad, she cut all the other guys back too.’”
“So Earl,” said one of ’em, “what, you figure you’ll be droppin’ out of school and looking for a job now that football’s finished for you? I mean, why else stay in school, right? Hard times at the factory, but they might have something.”
“Hell, leave him alone. The boy’s only what, seventeen? Eighteen? He’s gonna have his whole life to work, ain’t you, Earl?”
“Earl, you tell your daddy to haul you down here tomorrow night again. The bunch of us can do some real drinking.”
“Sounds good,” said Mr. Matlock. “Well c’mon, Earl. I know you need a ride home.”
Me and Mr. Matlock left the bar, got in his car.
“Your folks gonna be upset with you comin’ home this late? Need me to say something to them for you?”
“Nah, it’ll be okay.”
Matlock hit a pothole big as a wading pool, mud up on to the windshield.
“I better watch out for them.”
“For sure.”
There was a long pause and the car traveled further on down the road.
“Was a time when Reeve was a better town.”
“How’s that, Mr. Matlock?”
“Life was like walking on ice. It took a little effort to keep from falling on your ass, but you could at least do it. Things are more uncertain now. Everything we used to figure was right, ain’t. It’s like change changed.”
“You’re gonna pass it.”
“What’s that, Earl?”
“My house, you’re gonna pass it.” Mr. Matlock was still pretty drunk, and started on about better times, thinking stuff old people do.
“I tell you, summers die Earl, summers die. When my own dad came home from the war, Japan was a wasteland along with Europe. Somehow we did to ourselves what the Krauts and the Japs couldn’t. In Reeve, we had what we thought was a promise. The factory would give us jobs and we’d work hard for her. Nobody would be sleeping under the old Highway 61 railroad bridge like some do now.”
“My old man told me he took two months to come home from the Japan war by boat and train and bus, walked into the house, kissed my mom on Friday, got blind ass drunk on Saturday, and went to work Monday, swearing that the best and worst days of his life always seemed to begin with a hangover. Jesus, money was everywhere. The factor
y was still making glass and houses were going up fast. When the work started to taper off, the Reeve family slipped some in how they ran the place—everybody remembers those years when lame old Harry Reeve was in charge, before his brother stepped in. But at least when the Reeve family made tough business decisions, they knew the families they’d be affecting.”
“I put in a lot of good years alongside Stan and your dad. As hard as we worked, our product wasn’t selling as much. The changes to the factory, more computer things and all, seemed necessary, but how can they expect a man to become high-tech when they don’t pay for any education? Not much has changed in Reeve High School since I went there, and some of them textbooks you’re using probably got my name still in them. Hell, Mrs. Reardon has been sixty-two for the last twenty years.”
“We kept our part of the bargain, and we got played. The people who used our commitment realized they could take more and give us less. Wages went down ‘to save our jobs.’ Benefits went away ‘to protect the company’s future.’ We all pushed our mortgages out, bought American cars, and now Reeve’s gone. Nobody knows who owns that factory anymore. Maybe nobody owns it and it’s just a ghost. There never was no bargain, they just kept telling us there was. We did our part, they slipped out the back door while we were wondering how we got from there to here. I don’t know anymore, Earl. I wish I could think of some way to set it back right but it ain’t gonna happen. Some people see this as a dismantling of the past, but I wonder if it isn’t really just the future.”
THE LIGHTS, WELL, some lights, were still on when I walked in the house. I wasn’t sure if I was in trouble or not, so I was cautious entering the living room. I heard giggling. Walking through the house, I went to the kitchen, seeing Dad at the table with Mom on his lap, her arms wrapped around Dad’s neck. I’d never seen them like that before, ever. They were both damn drunk and kissin’ at each other, Mom stroking the hair at his temples, smiling delicately, like she was remembering something only she knew. An empty whiskey bottle was on the floor.
“We got company, Sissy.”
“Who’s that?”
“Looks like my fucking loser of a son, drunk like his old man.”
“Earl, where you been?”
“I been out.”
“Where’s that?”
“At the bowling alley.”
“Our boy’s grown, you know that Ray,” said Mom. “I remember when you was just a baby, little—”
“Sissy—”
“You was about three months old, and your daddy had you over his shoulder. Daddy was different then, still trying, don’t be angry now Ray, it was like that then. And I heard him say, ‘Look, I got a son.’ Or how’s about on the first day of school, when you walked home alone, and your Daddy hid in the bushes to be sure you’d be alright, embarrassed that you’d see him watching out for you. He loved you so much, Earl, was so happy putting you in the bath way back then. He’d take you as a baby to the park, push you on the swings saying, ‘Back and a-wwwway, back and a-wwwway,’ as you swung. Things changed, though, they did change.”
“That’s enough, Sissy. Earl, you better get off to bed, you came home too late. And tomorrow I’ll take you down to the factory, see the foreman about a job. Shit, fall’s almost here already,” he said, and I just went up the stairs, leaving them alone with their drink and the last of the summer and each other.
Industrial Waste
I LOOKED FOR work in all the places. The worst part was the first contact. You walked in and the store people smiled at you, thinking you were gonna buy something, “May I help you sir?” and then as soon as you mentioned a job, the smile dropped hard and you were no longer wanted and if they even continued to say “sir” it sounded sarcastic. A few would send you off with an application form they’d toss unread later, or, as time went on, push you away to a web site. Most Korean-run businesses that had opened in Reeve had no use for anyone outside their families, and the State liquor store hired from outside town, about the lowest rung on the ladder of political favors you could buy by helping elect the governor. I took to hanging around the parking lot, what we joked was called the slave market, talking with others there, all of us convinced we’d gather in case someone would come looking for day help. They’d come in from Mars, I figured, because there was no reason I could think of why anyone in town would need our labor. Still, sometimes someone would need something done and I made a few bucks. I cut grass and delivered newspapers, jobs I did now as an adult that I used to do for pocket money as a kid. I was a member of the “working poor,” words that are a profanity together.
Another one way to get by for me was pay day loans. A shop set up business in the strip mall. If you could show you had pay stubs from some sort of job, and they were easy enough to borrow or fake, and the shop guy never looked too close anyway, you could get a short-term loan to cover you until the next pay check. Anybody could get one, not like a credit card or a proper bank loan. The problem was you paid a $15 charge on every $100 borrowed, but if you didn’t pay it back on time it got big fast, zooming up to 390 percent a year. Something like two out of every ten people never paid it back at all, and the shop owner said he charged the rest of us more because of that. I asked him about the damn interest rate, and he said that borrowing from him cost less than the fee on a bounced check, knowing that kiting checks at the end of the month was another poor man’s way of “borrowing money.” Still, it was important to get the cash, especially after Ohio started locking up people who couldn’t pay off their parking tickets. Ain’t no judge or court in them cases either, it’s all administrative.
Soon enough it wasn’t just these store-front bastards doing it, the big name banks got in on it too. They called it a better name, like “Early Access” or “Ready Advance,” and said it was a kind of civic service, a short-term solution for money emergencies. But the average borrower took out thirteen of these emergency loans a year until it all caught up with him. The loan was supposed to be paid automatically by direct deposit. However, if your money was short, the bank stuck you with fees and even more interest on the unpaid part until you cycled down into a hole so deep you’d never pay it out. There was almost no way to get ahead of it once you started down that road, and the banks knew it.
Celebrated one Labor Day by borrowing against my car title. You could get half the value of your car in cash the same day. If you couldn’t pay it back on time, they’d give you an extension, at a higher rate. Rates was high to begin with; at that time it was close to one hundred percent interest, but now a lot of states protect working men by limiting the rate to only thirty percent. Still, for most, it all led to a cycle of debt with the constant repo threat overhead. When you failed to pay up and they called the loan, you lost the car. Try and keep the car anyway, they report it as stolen and the cops’ll go pick it up for them, throwing you in jail for stealing your own car at no extra charge. Who the cops working for, right?
I couldn’t qualify for a credit card, the middle class way of borrowing money. Those people pay like twelve to fifteen percent interest, so not a helluva lot different from payday loans. Just looks cleaner. I also bypassed those fuckin’ rent-to-own thieves, who let you rent a TV or a washer and dryer until you paid them a lot more than the appliance is worth and it’s old, at which point you own the thing, dropping $450 on a $200 item ’cause you had no choice but to pay over time and nobody else would give you credit. There’s whole industries out there that sprang up because us working poor became a new market.
With that in mind I even tried to cash in on it myself, working briefly for a collection agency. When folks could not pay, the debt got sold down the line. Some big bank wasn’t gonna fuss over small change, so it sold the debt to a big agency, who sold it to a smaller one like I worked for, a place that might see profit in getting twenty percent of a two hundred dollar collection. At those rent-to-own joints, you ended up having to sign tons of papers, all looking like they was written by a Keep Lawyers Employed committee, so th
at if you miss a payment the store takes back the whole appliance, not just the half they still own. This scared the dumb asses renting, but actually the last thing that company wanted was to repo a two-year-old TV, so my job was to knock on the door and try to get them to pay something, and at the same time see if they’d refinance at an even higher rate. Loan to pay a loan, how’s that sound? That old TV was worth nothing to us, but was some kind of magic shittin’ thing to some old lady. If she was a single mom, the TV was her babysitter—feed your sister after Wheel of Fortune, lights out after Idol—and she wasn’t gonna give it up easy. When I talked them into an even more fucked-up refi deal that let them keep the TV, they’d usually thank me for helping them out. Sometimes them moms would offer me what we called a couch payment, head or bed in return for me to report to the boss no one home. My last customer was a returned soldier who owed $100 for a bicycle he was buying over time for his daughter’s ninth birthday. Fuck if I was gonna repo a Barbie two-wheeler with pink streamers on the handle bars. I quit the job that day. No one home in this part of America.
After my old man died I got his, well, actually his own dad’s, gold watch. I was never gonna wear it hanging around parking lots, and could care less about remembering him more anyways, so I ended up at one of Reeve’s new pawn shops. These things have been around elsewhere since God invented dirt, but really took off as the economy tanked. It works pretty simply. You walk in with something, and they give you a “loan” of usually ten to twenty-five percent of actual worth and a ticket receipt. If you can pay back the loan, plus interest, in ninety days, you get your thing back. If not, the shop takes your item and sets in a display case and tries to sell it. Seems pretty straight, basically gettin’ loaned money at 75-90 percent interest.
Only what really happens is this. I walk in with that watch, at least halfway hopeful thinking I’m gonna snag some quick cash. Instead, soon as I cross the door frame I am nine years old again, sneaking with Muley, Tim and Rich into my mom and dad’s bedroom, pulling open his moth-ball-smelling (Mom protected the house against a plague’s worth) underwear drawer and showing them that gold watch. We had just seen a pirate movie and were all full of talk about gold and treasure, and that was about the most valuable thing I thought we owned. The group of us looked at it, turning it over in the light, feeling how heavy it was. It was a magical thing, more a jewel than a watch, something from another time. It glowed new because it was old. We had seen all sorts of “gold” things, but I think that was the first time we had held anything that was real gold, heavy, cold, valuable. We were gonna actually put it in a model car box and bury it in the yard to dig up later playing pirates until we heard my mom coming up the stairs with laundry and I shoved it back into the drawer and ran to my room with my friends. I think I almost wet myself that day, it was all so exciting.
Ghosts of Tom Joad Page 9
